My list of reasons to remain child-free currently extends to #3,201,283 (which is ‘They might want to use my Nintendo DS when I’m using it’), but #1 is KIDS TELL THE TRUTH.

Lies are an amazing invention. It takes kids too long to discover them.

They have no filter. They tell the truth and make observations about the world at top volume.

“MUUUUUM, MUM, WHY IS THAT LADY SO FAT?”

“DAD, DAD, WHY DO YOU MAKE ME BRUSH MY TEETH WHEN THAT MAN HAS CLEARLY NEVER DONE IT IN HIS LIFE?”

“MUMMY, WHY ARE YOU TELLING AUNTIE SUE SHE LOOKS PRETTY WHEN YESTERDAY YOU SAID SHE’S REALLY LET HERSELF GO SINCE MARRYING UNCLE DAN?”

I’m a) British, b) an extreme introvert, and c) on sweet, sweet drugs for social anxiety. The very last thing I need is people telling me the truth about myself. I require a veneer of false politeness, sexual repression, and strict adherence to safe conversational topics like the weather and… well, just the weather, please.

Children are also evil geniuses. My friend and I took her kid to the supermarket. He wanted some kind of sweet thing, she said no, he yelled at the top of his lungs, “NO MUMMY DON’T HIT ME AGAIN!” and wouldn’t stop until she gave him the sweet thing.

3. People who order salad in restaurants with any other option but salad.

I’m a sporner. I enjoy watching the popping and excision of cysts, pimples, lipomas, blackheads, and other assorted pockets of wonderfulness.

I’m fine with blood. I think I’d make a good nurse, as long as I didn’t have to comfort anybody or pretend I cared about their pain.

But tears freak me the fuck out.

I seek out the most extreme horror I can find and am inevitably disappointed, but you know what does scare me? The scene in Hannibal where Mason Verger arranges for a child’s tears to be squeezed into his martini, which he then drinks.

Even writing about it has made me feel sick. I’ll have to go and watch The Waterfall Cyst to cheer me up.

5. Extroverts

No.

6. Phone calls

No.

7. Being turned into a human centipede

If you need more than the title of this one to understand, I’m scared of YOU.

What am I frightened of? Incoming phone calls, people who expect me to make outgoing phone calls, internal worms (especially eyeball worms), crossing the road, people who say incomprehensible things to me and look at me weirdly when I respond with something totally irrelevant, heights (in particular, slopey heights), earwigs, spiders (less than I used to be), any shop, cafe, or restaurant I haven’t been into before, networking, and any room I haven’t been into before (you have no idea what might be in there – it might be zombies or confusing signs that don’t point at what they mean and bewilder me so much that I have to run away and never come back).

Porta Potties. There’s an X-Files episode where a monster is hiding in one. Ever since I saw that, I drop an innocent piece of toilet paper down into the darkness before I squat and see if anything lunges. Wouldn’t that be the worst? Being abducted and murdered while sinking in other people’s shit? (And that’s NOT a metaphor.)

I’m scared of heights. I don’t often find myself in high places so I forget I’m afraid of heights and agree to do silly things like go on a Ferris wheel. Don’t invite me to join you on any kind of fairground ride that goes up high. I’m no fun at all. I’ve been okay with aeroplanes, except for the first time I flew in one. Sitting at the front holding the controls might have has something to do with it.

I’m also afraid of spiders. Contrary to popular belief, fear of spiders it totally rational since every spider is a giant spider, even the really small ones.

I agree that children are horrifying and what can you expect of something that’s conveniently sized to pop out of random places? I’m​ hopelessly old and single, so my more childriffic family have started muttering about sperm donors… So I’ll add prying old aunts with leftover straws to the list as well as any other form of extroversion.

Seconding all the phone call issues – that’s why we have texts. I particularly hate having to call banks, or stores, or government departments, or anything where you have to wade through menus and listen to hold music, all for the joy of speaking to someone you absolutely don’t want to speak to. This is compounded by living in France at the mo and not speaking very good French.

Going to parties, or big lunches, or for drinks, or any sort of social gathering, really.